Consumer Law

The Coble Family on Oprah ? Suing for the Right Reasons

By Joe Consumer

Most of Oprah?s show yesterday, called ?The Worst Days Of Their Lives And The Miraculous Twist Of Fate?  was spent on the story of California?s Coble family.   You could hardly imagine a more tragic story than this.  Several years ago, Lori Coble was stuck in traffic on a busy freeway with her three small kids in back when a truck going about 55 mph rammed into the back of the car.  Lori lived.  All three children died (pictured here).  Fantastically, in 2008 the couple, Chris and Lori, gave birth to triplets (i.e., the miracle). 

The truck driver was convicted of vehicular manslaughter and sentenced to 364 days in jail and five years probation.  But as we watched the show, we couldn?t help but wonder if there was more to this story.  How a truck driver could have been so reckless?  Was he texting?  No, Oprah would have been all over that.  Was he drunk?  Did the brakes fail?  What else?

Then things started to make a bit more sense.  Towards the end of the show, you discover that the Cobles had filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Caltrans, which is responsible for ensuring the safety of California freeways.  Their motive wasn?t money.  It was safety ? to try to force Caltrans to fix this unsafe highway, arguing that ?faulty design of that stretch of freeway led to a backup, which led to the accident.?  They noted, ?Caltrans reports from a decade ago that called for an additional lane at the Oso Parkway off-ramp because traffic was backing up on the freeway for a half-mile before the exit.?  See more here.  

However, the California jury said no, finding Caltrans not at fault.  Chris Coble said, "We feel we unjustly lost based on the fact that the road remained unchanged for 10 years even though it was identified as a danger zone ? We wanted to let people know that our story does not have a happy ending.?  Even worse, they were ordered to pay Caltrans $291,534.04 in fees and costs.

People bring lawsuits for a lot of reasons, and very often money is not the motive.  It?s to make sure that their own tragedy is not repeated, to spare others their pain and make us all safer.  It?s a risk to sue, but one for which families like this shouldn?t be penalized.  Here is their website, in case you?d like to help them out. 

Full post as published by ThePopTort on October 26, 2010 (boomark / email).